Abstract

The commitments of critical sociology also hinge on another, often less-recognized assumption that the human condition itself is grounded in the existence or potentiality of a pre-theoretical and universal human need or desire to transcend, to self-determine, to be. Hence, while the project of struggling to create a better world is often framed as a problem of removing political, economic, cultural and psychological barriers to social change, for critical theorists it also begs questions about the social constitution of deep subjective impulses, the essence or contingency of ‘human nature’, and the possibility of educating people to need and desire differently than they presently do. The question of whether ‘another world is possible’, therefore, also communicates a new (and perhaps long overdue) ambivalence about basic sociological concepts of structure and agency, subjective and objective culture, and the definition of basic human needs and desires.